Sea Air

I wake up Thursday morning to the vicious revenge of a night of the Guinness. I stay up long enough to call Levi, who is just finishing up an evening of pints himself, then crawl back into bed to sleep off the headache. I wake in the late morning and, feeling that it would be silly to waste a day in bed, get on a train to visit Dublin’s seaside suburbs. Once the train is beyond the ugly urban sprawl and miles of muddy marshland that surround the city, I find myself in a different world, one entirely unlike the dusty, crowded Dublin. The train meets with the coast, winding around mountains and over cliffs and beaches. Despite the cool air, dozens of people are lying on every beach, soaking up some rare Irish sun. One fat, middle-aged mad is lying, in full view of the tracks, buck-naked on a cliff. I’m sure that’s the tannest ass in Ireland.

At the suggestion of my friends from the pub, I get off at the Bray station and find a breathtaking seaside village. Shops and restaurants line the beach just beyond a pristine boardwalk and rows of modest but beautiful houses wind up into the huge cliff that overlooks the town. I walk along the beach for a while then begin the six-kilometer hike up, around, and down the cliff to the neighboring town of Greystones. It’s an unbelievably beautiful, serene place, and I find myself more at peace than I’ve been in the past few weeks. All that frantic, stressful planning and travel was entirely worth it for this walk. One turn offers a dazzling view of the sparkling sea and the next reveals the vine-entangled ruin of an ancient stone house. I initially take pictures every few feet, but eventually surrender to the fact that a photo simply can’t capture this.

At the end of the trail I find a rocky, deserted beach and settle onto a boulder to write. Two older women arrive with two dogs, and I spend a few minutes sitting with the ladies as we watch the ecstatic creatures chase each other up and down the beach. They wrestle in the surf and swim in aimless circles in the shallows, thrilled to be in this unbelievable playground.

I take the train back to Bray, finding Greystones to be less pleasant, and eat a huge order of vinegar-doused fish and chips on the beach. On the way back to Dublin I stop to see a castle I’d heard about in Dalkey, a quaint, immaculate little place full of expensive cars and impeccably-dressed yuppies. I step off the train in Dublin just as the sun in setting behind the eleven-story obelisk at the city center. Lovely day.